The Courier
Benedict Cumberbatch excels yet again as the British spy Greville Wynne in a somewhat conventional biographical treatment.
Cloak and dagger: Benedict Cumberbatch as Greville Wynne
One can see why Benedict Cumberbatch was drawn to the character of Greville Wynne. He was a thoroughly decent, stoutly patriotic Englishman, but not without his flaws. He was susceptible to a little too much drink, and had once fallen prey to “an indiscretion” while married to his loyal wife, Sheila. But he was the personification of the stiff upper lip and would have given his life to save his country. To say more would be to rob Dominic Cooke’s narrative of any surprises, being, as it is, “based on true events.”
It is 1960 and the Americans and Russians are gripped in a power struggle over the nuclear button. What The Courier does convey is the constant terror in which the world lived during these times, on the teetering brink of extinction. But the terrain is well-trod and one wonders why Greville Wynne’s story proved any more exciting than all the stories that have gone before. There are the grey cityscapes of Moscow (filmed in Prague), the cosy meetings in gentlemen’s clubs and the occasional breathless call in a red telephone box. Cumberbatch is, of course, terrific – at once sympathetic and a little naïve, and the actor lost 21 pounds for the role, which is a lot for a man of his slim build. And the moment that nails Wynne’s humanity is when, at the Bolshoi, he watches a performance of Swan Lake and is consumed by the moral predicament of his position. In a secondary role, Jessie Buckley feels a little wasted as Sheila Wynne, although the Georgian actor Merab Ninidze is excellent as the British spy’s noble Soviet counterpart, Oleg Penkovsky.
Dominic Cooke, who made his film debut with the intimate, evocative and delicately plangent On Chesil Beach, seems in more conventional territory here, leaning heavily on the tropes of the genre, right down to Abel Korzeniowski’s score that blatantly plagiarises Shostakovich. Yet for all the film’s good intentions, there is an ordinariness about it, particularly when compared to the last film that Cumberbatch brought us under his production banner Sunny March, The Mauritanian. Nevertheless, Greville Wynne’s legacy is well-served and will bring his sacrifice – and those like him – to the attention of a new generation.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Merab Ninidze, Rachel Brosnahan, Jessie Buckley, Angus Wright, Željko Ivanek, Kirill Pirogov, Anton Lesser, Maria Mironova, Vladimir Chuprikov, Keir Hills, Emma Penzina, Alice Orr-Ewing, James Schofield, Fred Haig, Emma Penzina.
Dir Dominic Cooke, Pro Adam Ackland, Ben Browning, Ben Pugh and Rory Aitken, Ex Pro Leah Clarke, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ashley Fox, Glen Basner, Alison Cohen, Milan Popelka, Dominic Cooke, Tom O’Connor and Josh Varney, Screenplay Tom O’Connor, Ph Sean Bobbitt, Pro Des Suzie Davies, Ed Tariq Anwar and Gareth C. Scales, Music Abel Korzeniowski, Costumes Keith Madden.
42/FilmNation Entertainment/SunnyMarch-Lionsgate.
112 mins. UK/USA. 2020. Rel: 13 August 2021. Cert. 12A.
